By the time the situation is resolved, there is little doubt that the power outages, as experienced over the last two weeks, would have left what would amount to an economic blood bath in its trail.
Compared to previous ones, the current phase of outages is by far more severe, more disruptive, more unpredictable and infinitely destructive.
The biggest victims are no doubt going to be small businesses that are naturally the most unprepared, the most fragile and less resilient. It is also a fact of life that owing to their thin financial base, the SMMEs are also the most vulnerable as they are unable to use such interventions like power backups that are easily afforded by bigger corporations.
It is not an exaggeration to say outside of the mines, which, God forbid, we hope have not experienced what everybody else has been going through in the last two weeks, the economy of Botswana has been going through a tumultuous shock.
A lot of work has been done to explain just how as a country we ended up where we are unable to come anywhere close to meeting our energy needs.
There is no need to go back into history and try to point fingers and apportion blame.
What is important is that we have to make provisions for the future to ensure that the economy of Botswana suffers as little as possible as a result of the outages.
But events of the last two weeks have been so severe that many people involved in business of any kind feel it would not make any sense to them to pretend that any measures have been taken to mitigate the damage once it was known that we would as a country go through a long spell of energy deficits.
The upshot of events of power cuts that have perennially plagued the country over the last two weeks is that many businesses, many of them still struggling because early in the year there was little activity, and many of them still reeling from negative effects of a recession from which the country has not yet fully emerged are simply going to go under.
We have no intention whatsoever to blame Botswana Power Corporation over what is happening.
Indeed we have no intention to blame anyone, not even the Government of Botswana.
BPC is after all a Government owned company.
The best they can do is to make recommendations to Government and, depending on the outcome of their recommendations, implement that.
It is our understanding that what is currently happening is an outcome of many factors, almost all of them beyond the control of BPC and or Botswana Government, factors that have connived to render the country an economic wasteland as a result of power cuts.
Our suggestion is that the Government should consider coming up with a rescue plan to save small businesses and help restore them back on track.
An opportunity exists in the form of a budget speech due next month.
In it, the Minister of Finance and Development Planning can announce whatever measures the state intends to put in place to use its strengths, especially on procurement to deliberately favour small businesses, many of whom are, in any case, citizen owned.
Given its sizeable procurement budget, BPC should also seize on this opportunity to connect with small businesses, make linkages with them and assist government on saving those small companies that would otherwise go belly up as a result of the outages.
While it may not be entirely their fault, the credibility of BPC is no doubt at stake.
Many consumers have started to view the corporation as an unreliable supplier.
It is only for a lack of an alternative that the corporation is going to be able to retain its customers.
But the corporation is no doubt going to put up with public contempt, customer resentment and general disdain, at least in the short to medium terms.
That cannot be good for business, no matter how much the corporation would continue churning out.
In the light of what we are experiencing and terrible pitfalls that the economy can go through, we also urge BOCCIM, which are the representatives of organised business in Botswana, to come up with suggestions and representations to government on what packages can be formulated to salvage the situation.
